The Vietnam Reader (65 page)

The flares finally died and darkness returned. Our night sight was also gone, but it would come back. Unfortunately, as we moved forward, Puff also came back. As the first flare lit the sky, we hit the dirt.

“Son-of-a-bitch,” I remarked. “If that lieutenant down south isn’t being attacked by the dinks, I’ll go down there and kill him myself.”

The action finally ended and we moved into position fifty meters from the village. The north squad radioed in that they were further away from the village, about a hundred meters. The south squad radioed that they were right next to the small hills separating them from the village. The men with me were lying prone, heads resting on a small dike, bodies for once lying in a dry paddy. We could hear the villagers talking and a few girls giggling.

“Goddamn! Charlie is having a good time, having a family reunion, while we’re out here lying in rice paddy shit,” Mann mumbled to me.

“He’d better enjoy it while he can because it’ll be the last reunion he’ll ever have on this planet,” Doc whispered over.

“Yeah, when that MI chopper lands and the dinks start deciding to move, I don’t want one fucking dink to get away,” I stated.

The inevitable rain started falling about 0200 hours. Not a hard, driving rain but a good, steady, ass-soaking rain that the gods unleash on soldiers to remind them who is really in charge. Off to the north the rain-muted sound of a machine gun, ours by the sound of it, muttered a few seconds then quit.

“What the hell? Mann, call Schaldenbrand and find out what happened!”

“Yes, sir. Here’s Schaldenbrand.”

“One-five, this is One-six. What was that firing all about? Over.”

“This is One-five. A dink was trotting down the rice paddy dike out of the village right toward the Mike-60. Spagg opened up on him when he was only a few feet from us. He’s deader than hell. His left arm is ripped almost off, out.”

The rain stopped about the time the sky started to lighten in the east. All of us were crouched, wary of any movement in the village, ready to move as soon as MI arrived.

The villagers were becoming more active as they prepared for the day. As their movements increased, our tension mounted. Where was that chopper with the MI and his turncoat dink?

The chop-chop of rotor blades beat the early morning air. This was it! Suddenly the chopper came into view. The noise within the village became excited and the dinks started moving faster. The hell with them! My men could hold them. I would set the chopper down. The funny burbling voice of the chopper pilot came over the radio.

“Delta One-six, this is Early Bird with Hawk. Pop smoke, over.”

“This is One-six. Affirmative, out.”

The man who had popped smoke stood facing the direction the chopper would come from, holding his rifle in a horizontal position with his hands over his head. The pilot would read on the man holding the rifle. As the pilot drew closer, he would watch the rifle to correspond the altitude of his chopper with the altitude of the rifle. Since the man on the ground would be aware of hidden rocks, holes,
or obstructions the pilot couldn’t see, it was the soldier’s duty to act as a guide-in. As the chopper approached the exact spot on which he should land, the soldier would begin to lower the rifle straight out in front of his body. When the set-down spot was reached by the chopper, right in front of the soldier, the soldier would crouch down, bending both elbows together, and act as though he was laying the rifle down at his feet. The pilot would then settle in.

As the chopper landed, the field agent and Fouel jumped out. The pilot immediately headed back to base. I shook hands with the agent and he introduced me to Fouel. Fouel was a typically built Vietnamese, five feet tall and starving. He was wearing black pajamas and carrying an M-2 carbine. He looked just like a Cong in that outfit.

I called the other two squads to warn them not to shoot our own man. One of my men yelled and pointed toward the village with all the activity. It looked like someone had kicked an anthill. Hot damn! There were dinks in there for sure.

We moved on line through the west edge of the village. The villagers stood in groups. This was not going to be just another patrol designed to show strength. This time we had something definite in mind.

A man went into each hootch, ripping apart the rooms and belongings, looking for guns, ammo, anything which the dinks used for weapons or war. The Chou-Hoi, Fouel, was a fanatic. He knew the people in this village personally and he was grabbing certain men and talking very rapidly, pointing his gun at their heads, waving his arms, and just generally stomping around.

Action! The squad on the north side had intercepted about ten or more dinks trying to escape. The dinks had run back into the village on the side facing the lake. The squad stayed on line, causing them to move slower. They called on the radio to say they could see the dinks piling into boats.

I yelled to no one in particular, “Where are those motherfucking gunships? If those dinks get away across that lake …”

We couldn’t see to the east end of the village but I could hear the firing going on. The right side of the squad on the north could now be seen. Good! Good! The south squad was holding its position on the
other side of the hill. When my squad reached the lake, we would swing around and sweep the hills.

I grabbed the radio. “Those gunships show up yet? One-five, what the hell’s going on? Over.”

“One-six, this is One-five. Those dinks took off in their boats but we shot one boat up pretty bad. Six dinks were on board; all of them had Thompsons [submachine guns]. We zapped five of them and have captured one. Here come the gunships! It’s a fucking lick! They have two boats trapped out in the middle of the lake. I’ll get back to you, out.”

The sound of the gunships was clearly audible. We could catch occasional glimpses as they rose up after completing a firing run. They didn’t have to make many passes. The dinks in the boats only fired a few rounds before they were chopped to pieces. My squad had almost reached the edge of the lake and the village and had not run into anything but the hostile stares of the villagers. They wouldn’t say anything to Fouel, no matter how much he berated them.

I called again. “One-five, where are you? I’ve reached the lake, over.”

“This is One-five. We’re right north of you. We have you in sight. This rain is screwing up visibility.” (It had started again.) “We’re diving in the lake where the boat flipped over; we want to get some of those Thompsons, over.”

“Okay, just don’t let that prisoner loose. Have a couple of men bring him over and we’ll question him. Out.”

My squad had found a clear spot on the side of the hill a little higher than the main village area. The trees formed a kind of shelter and we were sitting in a circle taking a smoke break. I was preparing the plans for the sweep of the hill behind us when two of my men arrived with our prisoner. He was the healthiest dink I had seen up to then, about five feet three inches, very muscular, and well fed. His shirt was khaki, but it was pretty much in shreds. He had on shorts which were common among the lake people.

“Here, sir, we found this on him.” My man handed me a billfold and some papers. I couldn’t read the papers, but in the billfold was a very clear photograph of a Vietcong squad, complete with weapons.
The prisoner was one of the men in the photograph. Paydirt! This man could lead us to weapons and perhaps other members of the squad. I pointed him out in the picture and pointed to him. He just looked defiant and stuck out his jaw. I tried to get some information out of him, but he could not or would not understand what I was saying. One of the guys gave him a smoke.

The Vietcong squatted down on his haunches with his arms wrapped around his legs, smoking our American cigarettes, waiting for us to take him in. Here was a live enemy squatting there smoking, seemingly unconcerned with us or the fact we had captured him. I wished I could speak his language. I didn’t understand why he seemed so unconcerned. Probably because he didn’t fear us now. He knew the Americans turn their prisoners over to the ARVNs at which time he would have plenty to worry about. The field agent and Fouel had been nosing around somewhere in the village when the prisoner had been brought to me. Fouel and the agent suddenly burst into the circle of soldiers. Upon spying our prisoner, Fouel yelled a few short words in Vietnamese toward the prisoner. The guerrilla’s expression turned from a cool disinterest to one of terror. He obviously knew his adversary.

Fouel ran across the short distance of the circle and kicked the guerrilla as he was rising from his crouch. The guerrilla rolled backward and drew his body up into the fetal position, covering his head with his hands to protect himself from the kicks and slaps which Fouel battered him with. Fouel was screaming the whole time. He would stick his head down and yell what was obviously a question. No response from the guerrilla brought a good kick in the ribs from Fouel. The guerrilla would roll on his other side and Fouel would kick that side for a while. This shock treatment went on for a few minutes to loosen him up. Then Fouel got down to business.

The First Squad had given up diving for the Thompsons and had joined my squad. We all formed a ring around the activities. Fouel grabbed what was left of the guerrilla’s shirt to drag him to the center of our ring. The shirt came off as Fouel was dragging him. Fouel immediately whipped the dink with the rag before throwing it to the ground. Fouel made the guerrilla sit up. Fouel’s voice had dropped to
a serious businesslike manner as he began to question the guerrilla. The black pajamas Fouel was wearing made the scene look eerie, as if one Vietcong were questioning another Vietcong. The only difference was the ring of soldiers, American instead of Oriental. In fact, it was Vietcong questioning Vietcong. Fouel had come from their ranks and obviously knew this man. Fouel had made his hand into a fist, developing a steady, rhythmic beat between the guerrilla’s eyes with his knuckles. I had seen the dinks use this on other prisoners. The actual contact of the knuckles against the skull between the eyes was not a swinging blow but delivered from six or eight inches with a smart rap in a continuous manner. We had tried it on each other enough to know it quickly became a painful and irritating process. After a few minutes, Fouel changed tactics by abruptly lashing out with his foot, kicking the guerrilla in the head. The guerrilla let out a howl as he clasped his head and rolled on the ground. Fouel was methodically hitting the guerrilla with the butt of his rifle. Knee, back, kidneys, head, chest, arms, legs—it didn’t make any difference. The field agent finally noticed we were taking pictures and ran out into the middle of the circle yelling, “Hey, no pictures, no pictures of this!” He thrust his hands up in front of a few lenses. We put our cameras away with no squawk. What the hell? We could understand his not wanting pictures to go back home showing an MI interrogation team working over a prisoner. We continued to watch the prisoner. After having a few rounds fired at us in the past—perhaps he had planted the land mines—we didn’t care if Fouel killed him. My concern was in information that he could give us.

Eventually Fouel ripped his clothes off him and he was naked. Not much blood was on him, but quite a few knots were rising up on his body. He was muddy, bruised, tired, scared, and he started talking. Every time he slowed down, Fouel would rap him between the eyes. Translated, his story was this: He had been recruited into the Vietcong in 1960 from this area. The picture he carried was his squad, the members who lived in this and surrounding villages. When time permitted, they would cross the road at night between our bridges to visit in the villages, recruit members, visit with their relatives, and develop propaganda against the Americans and the current government of
South Vietnam. A year ago he had been picked to go north to a special guerrilla training school near Hanoi. This training lasted about six months. The training involved propaganda procedures, weapons use, both theirs and ours, and recruiting techniques. He had seen some American prisoners in or near Hanoi. After coming back, he had been busy increasing the guerrilla activity in all aspects for this area. After the confession, he sullenly picked up what was left of his shirt and shorts, and got dressed. His hands were then tied behind him. I had kept in contact with Captain Sells during the whole operation. He was particularly happy with the news that we had gotten information from our prisoner. We would finish the operation and bring the prisoner in.

The two squads of men formed a line from the edge of the village at the base of the small hill up to the top. The lake was at our back as we began a sweep back to the west determined to flush out any more dinks hiding on the hill. The south squad was still holding firm at the bottom on the other side. I glanced in both directions to observe that the line was fairly even, cautiously moving forward, halting whenever thick bushes, trees, and grass broke us up and also provided an infinite number of hiding places for the dinks.

Woods, a black man who was an excellent shot, held up his hand. Our section of the line stopped, the anticipation of action guiding our every movement. Woods moved stealthily forward from his position on my left. After advancing about five meters, he stared intently to his front. We stared forward, trying to penetrate the thick growth to see what was in front of him. Suddenly he whirled to his left, bringing his rifle up and firing in one motion. Two meters to his left a dink flopped backward, a bullet through his head. Woods cautiously approached the dink and reached down to search the body. Woods stayed alive by being cautious.

“Jesus-fucking-Christ, Woods, how did you see that son-of-a-bitch? I thought there was something in front of you, not sitting in your left side pocket.”

“Yeah, that’s what that motherfucker was thinking, too. That motherfucker figured if he kept quiet, I’d pass him by since I was
staring in another direction. Out of the corner of my eye I saw that mother watching me so I zapped him before he could think about it.”

“Hey! Look at this! Look! It’s a picture just like the one that other dink was carrying. Look, it’s that dink squad.”